


lights will

by Misprinting (misprinting)



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: 5 things (ish), Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, hc_bingo, taking care of somebody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misprinting/pseuds/Misprinting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For hc_bingo: taking care of somebody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lights will

**1.**

Jim is a lightweight, so he doesn’t get drunk.

Only, no, because logically that doesn’t make sense. Jim is aware of that. He tries to figure out why it doesn’t make sense, though, and ends up back at the start.

“I don’t get drunk,” Jim tells Neal. “I’m a lightweight.” Neal has a hand on Jim’s shoulder, guiding or steadying him (Jim’s not sure which is less humiliating yet), and he’s hailing a cab. Trying to. Not having much luck. It’s raining a bit, too.

“You’re definitely that,” Neal agrees. Jim starts to wonder if he’s really screwed up and gone and embarrassed himself in front of his new colleague, the one who’s been nice to him and invited him out like one of the team and likes to tell obscure jokes about British pop culture and then explain in great detail why it’s a horrible state of affairs that Jim is American. But, though Neal’s voice is exasperated, his smile is actually quite sweet.

Sweet, not fond. Way too early to say fond. Way too drunk to not have the thought, though. Such is life.

A cab finally pulls up and Neal keeps a guiding hand on Jim’s back as he gets in, climbing in after him, stumbling a bit, and Jim realises that maybe Neal’s a bit drunk, too. Jim relaxes.

“Where to?” Neal asks. Jim has to think for a second to make sure he gets the address right, but he has only just moved in. Neal rests his hand on Jim’s shoulder the whole way over there, and when the cab pulls up outside Jim’s building he helps Jim find his wallet (he hadn’t actually needed the help, but that’s okay, Neal’s just a handsy drunk,) and refuses to let Jim chip in on the tip.

“I’ll, um, see you tomorrow,” Jim says, leaning against the side of the cab so he can see Neal inside it, feeling awkward.

“Sure,” Neal says. “Are you going to be okay?” He’s so earnest about it. Jim smiles and shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” He says, “I can manage using the lift and I’ve got my keys. I’m not incapable.”

“‘Course you aren’t, yeah,” Neal says. Jim thinks he might be blushing. It’s awkward, anyway. Jim laughs to try and disperse all that awkward and Neal joins in.

“Get home safe.” Jim says, tapping his fingers against the cab for a second before deciding to just call an end to this and try being not-awkward tomorrow. When they are both wonderfully sober. Jim smiles at Neal, waves (awkwardly, but he doesn’t asking for miracles), and shuts the cab door. He watches it pull away.

 

**2.**

Neal gets twitchy in the hospital waiting room. Jim sits next to him and keeps their shoulders pressed next to each other.

“You should get back,” Neal says, his head down, but Jim doesn’t need to be getting back. He could do with being at home, making himself something secretly unhealthy to eat and then trying to sleep. He’d only end up on his phone, though, tracking the story and making notes for the morning.

And Neal just looks so miserable. Jim would be miserable, too, if it were him, so he goes for a sympathetic back-pat. Neal jumps, then tries to hide the jump. Jim can feel himself starting to flush.

Jim goes with Neal when he gets called through to see a doctor and stays with him while Neal gets his fingers splinted and wrapped up. The doctor says, “I’ll be gentle, but this will hurt,” so Jim frowns and reaches out to hold onto Neal’s uninjured hand. He realises what a weird thing that is to do when Neal snaps his head around to look at him, like, _what the fuck?_

“Um.” Jim says. “Just, um, like in the movies?” He shakes their hands for emphasis. To emphasise the point he’s not making, yet. God. “Like, so you can squeeze my hand. For the pain.” Jim very carefully doesn’t notice the doctor very carefully not noticing what an idiot he is, and keeps a firm grip on Neal’s hand.

Neal smiles like it’s involuntary, shakes his head, and says, simply, “Thanks.” Jim shrugs.

Neal doesn’t really squeeze, though he bites his lip and looks a little grey by the time it’s all neatly bandaged, but he keeps ahold of Jim’s hand.

 

**3.**

Jim’s more of an experimental cook than a good one, in that he buys things that sound good and makes up recipes with what he ends up with later. When he’s just cooking for himself that’s fine, but while Neal is all invalided he and Maggie are trying to make him meals he can heat up, and he suddenly finds some embarrassment over his food choices from somewhere. Neal seems to like his onion and apple soup, though. Though he is British, and Jim tries to allow for British manors.

Jim stops taking meals around to Neal’s only when Neal demonstrates that he can open a tin of tomatoes, but it’s another week and a half before Neal decides he’s going to pay him back. Neal comes over on a Sunday evening, drop calling Jim to let him know he’s at his door, and he walks through Jim’s hallway with a grin and a plastic bag with which he invades Jim’s kitchen and starts to mess it up. Jim leans against a counter and watches him, wondering when he gave permission for this to be happening.

“I can’t… _exactly_ cook,” Neal says, pulling out a tin of tuna. “But I wanted to pay you back. Um, and I make this tuna pasta bake thing with apricots in? And it’s good. So I’m going to make that and we’re going to watch a Bond film and have a beer together and then you’re going to have actually sat down for the first time since Wednesday. By Maggie’s count.”

“I sit!” Jim says, realising too late to stop himself that he’s protesting when he should be thanking. “… There’s a seat at my desk.”

“Not what I meant.” Neal smiles at him and points to a chair. Obediently, feeling like a dog, Jim sits. Honestly, he’s too tired (too overworked) to mind.

The pasta is good enough that Jim makes Neal let him write down the recipe (“but then you won’t need me to come cook it for you,” Neal says, and Jim rolls his eyes and says, “but I’ll think of you when I make it,” and laughs when Neal does, but knows it’s true,) and is basically tuna casserole, as it turns out. He wakes up two thirds of the way into the film with his face pressed into Neal’s shoulder and Neal’s hand resting against his neck. It’s so nice he pretends he’d never woken up.

 

**4.**

Martin comes into work wearing the clothes he’d left wearing the day before a couple of times, and at first Jim doesn’t even notice. Then Maggie makes a joke about it, and he starts to notice, and he just assumes Martin’s a bit of a slob. Then he realises Martin might be the guy everyone in the office has slept with, and he starts making a spreadsheet. Maggie laughs in his face. But, half and hour later, she gives him a page and a half of notes from her own observations.

Neal turns up on the spreadsheet.

“So.” Jim says, and he’s honestly planning on asking if Neal wants a sandwich for lunch, but what he says is, “You have sex with guys sometimes?”

“Um,” Neal says. “… Yeah? You realise we’re at work, right.”

Jim blinks. “ _Yes,_ ” He says miserably. Neal nods.

“Then can I ask why?” He says, leaning his hip against his desk. “Why now, I mean.”

“Because,” Jim says. He can’t look directly at Neal so he settles for his chin. Which is too close to his mouth, really, but Jim is a weak, weak man. “I don’t know. I have this spreadsheet? And it says you slept with Martin.”

“Um.” Neal says. “First of all: you’re showing me that spreadsheet. Second… yes, okay. Cool. Is this going to be a problem?”

“No!” Jim is shocked into looking at Neal, who smiles at his reaction. “No, just. He sleeps with everyone. And I worried… um. Not worried. Just. I wondered if you liked him. And I didn’t want you to have the wrong idea. And get hurt.” Jim frowns. “Or something. Less ridiculous.” He waves his hand. Neal stares at him for a second, and then he laughs.

“Um, Jim, I don’t know how to tell you this. _I’m_ the office bike. Don’t know if you’ve noticed.” Neal says. Suddenly he’s frowning and Jim feels his stomach drop because _no, why is this happening?_ He swallows. Neal leans back against a desk. “The protection thing’s sweet but, um… pointless, is the word I’m going to use. Pointless. Are you…” He shifts, folding his arms, and looks at Jim seriously. “I’m not trying to be a dick, here, and tell me to fuck off. But. Are you jealous?”

“No.” Jim says, in the least convincing way he’s maybe said anything in his life. Neal laughs like he can’t stop himself and Jim silently wills a zombie apocalypse to come their way as a distraction. It doesn’t. Neal stops laughing.

“Sorry,” He says. “Um, okay, you’re not jealous. That’s cool.” He looks away, and suddenly the way he’s got his arms folded just looks awkward and uncomfortable.

“I’m not.” Jim says, trying to be firm. He sighs. He’s not fooling anyone. “… Except actually I am. I’m sorry.”

Neal unfolds his arms and laughs. “Don’t be,” He says, “Sorry or jealous. …There’s not much point in you being either one.”

Jim looks at him, freezes for a moment because Neal’s watching him with his intense look in his eyes that’s a bit intimidating, really, and thinks, _oh_. Mentally, he kicks himself, and then he pushes himself towards Neal and quietly says, “Tell me to fuck off, but…” and dips in to kiss him. Neal kisses him back.

After a moment, Neal pulls back to laugh at him, saying, “You’re such a geek.”

They go back to kissing.

 

**5.**

The duvet has bunched up between them sometime in the night, but Jim is half pulled out of sleep when Neal kicks out in his sleep. He blinks over at him and isn’t really sure why this woke him up or why he knows this isn’t good, but it’s a dreamy sort of knowledge and he sleepily pulls the duvet out of the way and over the top of both of them and shifts up to Neal’s back. He puts his arm around Neal’s waist, a hand on his chest, and pulls him in. Neal makes a noise that’s a little distressed and Jim wakes up a bit more. He holds onto Neal while Neal shifts, restless, and makes distressed noises, until Neal sighs, relaxing, as though he’s fallen properly back to sleep. Jim lies with his nose against Neal’s shoulder until he can, too.

He starts to think, _if I weren’t here_ , stops himself, and is just glad he is.


End file.
